Volume I Special Issue I September 2021

Name of Author : Karyir Riba

Title of the paper : Deconstructing the Native Archetype: The ‘self’ in Earling’s Perma Red

Abstract: The palpable exoticism of the native subject across academia and different forms of art has crafted a typified understanding of the native. The representation of the ‘native’ or the ‘indigene’ in the form of a prototypical icon, or the recurrent characterisation of eccentric ‘native subjects’ that ought to be saved, has crafted an ‘archetype’ that is often fixed and consolidated. This has reared the ‘Native subject’ as an impenetrable iconography, leaving no room for iteration of the ‘self’ or the ‘personal’. This paper aims to analyse Debra Magpie Earling’s Perma Red 2002 as a counter narrative to the lengthy heritage of the ‘native archetype’ and study her work as a spatial evidence of hermeneutical identities.

Keywords : Native, Archetype, Hermeneutics, Self, Identity

DOI :

Page Number : 146-149